


fortunately, unfortunately

by PunkHazard



Series: Kent [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 02:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16986423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: Winning this game is usually so easy; asking a sarcastic question in lieu of giving an actual answer comes second nature to Jacobi, but the thought that his own 'annoying jerk' tendency might not hold a candle to Kepler's 'competitive bastard' impulse is hard to swallow.





	fortunately, unfortunately

Sixteen hours. Jacobi hadn't even thought _himself_ capable of playing this game for so long, but if he were being honest, it's adding a level of challenge to an assignment that could be considered... pretty boring. Not that SI-5 missions were ever truly uneventful, but a two-man operation to plant evidence of embezzlement in some corporate executive's apartment is probably the easiest thing Jacobi will ever be called on to do. 

It doesn't mean he's enjoying this stakeout, though. 

"Jacobi," Kepler says, "could you pass me the binoculars?"

Jacobi passes him the binoculars. "You can't get them yourself, sir?"

That kind of insubordination would normally earn him a sharp reprimand, but Kepler lets it slide as part of Questions Only. He's nothing if not a good sport, and Jacobi's cautious look melting into a grin is more than worth the temporary indulgence. "What are you doing here if not to pass me tools?" he challenges, flashing the younger man a smirk before he turns back toward the apartment building and puts the binoculars to his eyes. 

Daniel doesn't miss a beat, putting on his best kicked-puppy face (unacknowledged) and shooting back, "You don't think I'm useful for things other than passing you binoculars?" 

His 'sincere question' voice is notably absent, as is the 'unresolved issues' tone, so Kepler leaves him hanging for a good twenty seconds before he puts down the binoculars and reaches for a bag of chips from the pack on the floor between Jacobi's feet. "Do you think your usefulness is the only reason I keep you around?" he asks, brow quirking.

Waiting for Kepler to open the bag of chips, Jacobi reaches across and sneaks a handful before Warren can stop him. "Isn't that what you're saying?" he drawls, his expression guarded. He's not prone to expecting more, expecting anything from Warren other than his direction or his approval, and Warren suspects that up until this moment, he's been too afraid to ask. Still, it has been sixteen hours. They've exhausted nearly every line of conversation they haven't been actively avoiding. 

The question seems to warrant a sincere answer, which must be exactly what Jacobi was planning. 

"What if it's not?" Warren says, voice low. Barely qualifies as a question, really, but it serves multiple purposes. Deflecting Jacobi's query, piquing his curiosity, continuing the game. He's not sure if he wants to continue this line of questioning, but the one person he's inclined to answer is sitting beside him, stuffed into the same nondescript sedan for the better part of a day. 

"Is it really obvious," Jacobi asks, spraying potato crumbs everywhere, "that I don't know what you mean, sir?"

"Don't you think I can finish this assignment on my own?" Of course, Warren does have one other ulterior motive, one that he barely considers ulterior or a motive at all: Jacobi might be happy to hear it, and a happy ballistics expert is an effective ballistics expert, even if his particular skillset won't come into play very much on this assignment. A point man is always an asset.

Daniel's eyes narrow, more confused squint than anger. "Are you saying I'm useless for this job?" he asks, in the voice that says he's not offended _yet_ but that there's a distinct possibility Warren's answer might wound him, deeply and abjectly. "Did Cutter make you take me?"

"Have you considered," Warren says, giving him a look he hopes truly conveys the depth of his disappointment that Jacobi might take his words in that way, "that I might enjoy your company, Mr. Jacobi?"

Kepler's made it a goal in life to be completely unreadable, a facade of amiability to mask whatever other intentions he buries underneath. He'd been perfecting it in the last year or so, using Jacobi's reactions as a barometer for whether or not it's working. 

Jacobi has only just begun to work on his own poker-face, first modeling it after Kepler's, and then slowly tweaking it to suit his own M.O. In any case, Daniel's not nearly as unreadable as his C.O., and his shoulders square, back straightening. His eyes crinkle almost imperceptibly at their corners, and he snorts, turning away to bring his smile under control before he looks back. "Isn't enjoying my company still of use to you?" he retorts, with none of the characteristic bite in his voice but a cheeky tilt of his head.

Warren laughs at that, allowing the point to stand uncontested. "Have I ever told you how much your wit inspires me?" he teases, reaching over to the passenger seat and squeezing his shoulder, shaking it playfully the way a pitbull might rattle a pomeranian.

"Oh," counters Jacobi, now not even bothering to hide his grin, "am I supposed to be flattered?"

"Aren't you?"

Jacobi looks away, arms crossing over his chest. "Are you gonna hold it against me if I am?"

"Now," says Kepler, "what in the world makes you think I'd do that?"

* * *

They watch the mark exit his apartment building empty-handed, climb into his car and leave. Both of them slip into the building through a fire escape-- significantly more suspicious and less expedient than getting past the security guard as a deliveryman (as Jacobi likes to do) or chatting up the elderly lady hauling home bags of groceries and slipping past as a family member (as Kepler prefers), but neither of them plan to lose the game and they reach the compromise almost entirely without discussion. 

They let themselves into a spacious, well-lit condo, two stories in an already exorbitantly expensive building. Jacobi cases the living room first, checking bookshelves, desk drawers and the couch to find and disable any bugs while Kepler searches the kitchen. Neither of them say a word until Jacobi turns up a small microphone (its battery easily removed) and Kepler disables the security camera by the fire escape. 

When he finally speaks again, Kepler accompanies it with a smirk, the clearest indication that he _likes_ this game that simultaneously allows him to show off how smart he is and be absolutely insufferable at the same time. His first time ever playing and he's managed to stretch it to eighteen hours. "Can I trust that you won't have any problems down here while I search the upstairs?"

Winning this game is usually so easy; asking a sarcastic question in lieu of giving an actual answer comes second nature to Jacobi, but the thought that his own 'annoying jerk' tendency might not hold a candle to Kepler's 'competitive bastard' impulse is hard to swallow. "Is there anything you want me to pay attention to in particular," he sighs, "sir?"

"Am I going to regret letting you do your own thing?"

"Should I let you know when I'm done?"

He disappears upstairs, but his voice carries all the way to the kitchen. "Shall we see who finishes first?"

A flash of movement about five minutes later in Jacobi's peripheral vision is what alerts him to the sudden change in plans, Kepler foregoing the spiral staircase altogether to swing himself over the wrought iron rail, landing in a crouch on plush carpet. "Jacobi," he says, deadly calm as he approaches the island at a dead sprint, "could you duck down behind that counter for me?"

Jacobi does as asked, sliding down to sit with his back to the structure as Kepler vaults over the marble countertop, sliding across its length to join Daniel on the other side. "Major?"

Kepler says nothing-- just wraps one hard arm around the back of Jacobi's neck and pulls him down, shoving his face toward the ceramic tile and covering his head with the crook of his elbow. If they weren't playing Questions Only, Jacobi would have finished an entire litany of complaints in the ten seconds between being manhandled and for the floor above them to explode into the living room.

The shockwave passes over their heads, along with a rolling blast of heat. Wood cracks as the cabinetry behind them splinters, but the debris doesn't go far and mostly just jabs Daniel in the arm. Crumbled plaster flakes down on their heads, dust clouding the air. 

Kepler exhales, the tension in his arm loosening instantly once alarms start going off in the hall. "You alright?" he asks, calm as ever, his voice barely carrying over the ringing in his ears.

A footnote in Jacobi's briefing had said 'Target may already be embezzling and evidence will not require planting', not 'Target may _booby trap and destroy his own living quarters_ to erase evidence at the first sign that someone's found it' and Jacobi idly notes that he's about half a second off from _freaking the hell out_ about it. The only thing stopping him from a full-blown meltdown is Kepler's fingers digging into his shoulder, having shifted his grip-- the piercing eyes boring into his.

The Major's level tone does absolutely nothing to soothe Jacobi's nerves. He likes explosions as much as the next guy but pretty much exclusively _when_ and _where_ he decides. He'd brought a few close-quarters grenades and neither of them had packed anything that could cause that kind of damage, so they really did just manage to break into the apartment of the most paranoid corporate suit whose name isn't Marcus Cutter. "You weren't gonna warn me," he hisses, "about an _EXPLOSION_ just so you don't lose this stupid game?"

And then Kepler _smiles_. Like he's proud of Jacobi for having enough presence of mind to keep it up. "Can I take that as a yes?" he says, and his hand tightens around Jacobi's shoulder, hard enough to bruise but just right to keep him grounded in the moment.

Jacobi laughs, or he tries to, though it comes out sounding more hysterical than he'd intended. Still, he can feel the initial rush of adrenaline subsiding to something more manageable, to the kind that sharpens his focus instead of rattling his nerves. "Don't you think this has gone on long enough, sir?" he volleys, mustering a crooked smile.

A nod. _Good man._ Kepler looks away briefly, removing his arm from Jacobi's shoulder to go digging through his pockets for his phone. "Did you know there's a simple way to end it right now?" he says, dismissing a message from Goddard Futuristics informing him of a recent newsletter and pulling up a tracking application, for the bug they'd planted on the mark's car earlier that day.

"Did you really think that would work on me?"

"Mr. Jacobi," Kepler says, and then he pauses, breathing slowly and deeply, "would you say plan B is in order?"

"Should I initialize it?" Jacobi shoots back, the detonator already in his hand as he taps out his authorization code on its numberpad. On orders, he'd planted a bomb on the target's car, too, in case something went _horribly wrong_ and they had to take care of him in some other way. 

Kepler takes a split second too long to respond, to set down his phone, coming back with a weak, "Don't you think that's the best course of action right now?" when Jacobi finally looks up from his detonator. His eyes drift down, to the hand Kepler has pressed to his side and wedged between their bodies, and the dark sheen of blood slicking his fingers under his jacket. Back up, to meet a familiar pair of steely grey eyes. 

"Major," Jacobi says, feeling inexplicably lightheaded, "are you bleeding? Is all that yours?" 

Kepler sags against him, eyes half-lidded as blood soaks his shirt, all down his side. He gestures for Daniel to hit the big red button on the detonator. "Who... else... would it belong to?"

Jacobi's voice cracks in disbelief, but he presses the button. "Is this _really_ the time?"

* * *

Warren is only distantly aware of the pickup by Goddard's extraction team, flying in under the guise of law enforcement to whisk two SI-5 agents away. Jacobi had wrestled him out of his blazer, folded it up, and used it to stanch the bleeding as much as he could, thereby ruining a pure merino wool jacket. Quite possibly his _favorite_ pure merino wool jacket. He declines sedation while a doctor picks splinters out of the gaping wound in his side and sews him up, leaving him bandaged and dizzy in the medbay.

He's still laid out on the bed when someone bursts into the room and sighs. Very loudly. Not at all sympathetically. 

Kepler cracks one eye open. "Ja... cobi?"

"I thought you were gonna die," Daniel gripes, stepping closer and clasping the hand Warren extends to him, obligingly allowing himself to be pulled in for a hard pat on his shoulder, "and I'd have to get a new job. After I just got settled into this one, too."

At that, Kepler's expression breaks out into a full-blown grin, self-satisfied and smug. "Was that a question?"

Jacobi groans.


End file.
